


See laws one and two

by mothTropic



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: AU where Zim gets a competent robot instead of a malfunctioning one, Gen, Zim is technically a main character here, asimov would be turning in his grave, im gonna shut up about robots now, laws of robotics, robots but not in a sex way
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-13 02:01:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19590337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mothTropic/pseuds/mothTropic
Summary: A normal, fully functional SIR Unit can kill its assigned invader if they are a threat to the mission. This would obviously never happen, because all invaders are competent soldiers who come up with rational plans.This SIR Unit has been stolen by an incompetent fry cook, though. And unlike the broken one it's replacing, it's serious about the mission.





	See laws one and two

Oh boy. Things were really looking up for Invader Skoodge. Sure, he'd been assigned the Planet Of The Slaughtering Rat People, but at least he'd been assigned a planet. Skoodge was an optimist after all. When you tended to draw the short straw, you had to look on the bright side.

Skoodge clenched his fist as he looked around at the launch bay. Less than a dozen cruisers of various makes and models lined the room. Inside them were other invaders and their SIR Units, preparing to expand the Irken empire. Skoodge's ship was the worst, obviously, seeing as nobody wanted to give someone like him a working vessel. But it did work - he'd repaired it himself - and he was off to make his Tallest proud.

Invader Skoodge suppressed a grin. He was easy to ignore, both physically and status-wise, but when he conquered a planet, they'd have to notice him. No more of this "didn't see you there". No loud comments about his height. He'd be a real, respected member of the Irken elite. He could hardly wait.

He had his SIR Unit go around back to check his fuel levels (the fuel gauge had fallen out years ago, fuel had to be checked by opening the fuel hatch and peering inside), and decided to accompany it. Better to see what its strengths and weaknesses were now, rather than in the heat of battle.

"Well if it isn't Skoodge! My old classmate!" Skoodge groaned at the sound. Approaching him now was indeed an old classmate, but not exactly a welcome one.

"Zim. How are you doing?" Hopefully this would be short.

"How am I doing?!" Zim screeched. "How am I doing?! I am Zim, fool! I am always doing fine! Presumptuous cockroach! Arrogant worm!"

Skoodge sighed. Zim hadn't changed a bit since they were classmates. Soon, though, Skoodge would be off in the stars, and he wouldn't have to deal with people like Zim. Just Slaughtering Rat People. He couldn't wait.

"Good luck on your mission," Skoodge said. He extended a hand, only for it to be slapped away.

"Good luck? Good luck?! I do not need luck," Zim ranted. "I am Zim!"

Skoodge turned away from him and pretended to be very interested in the trunk of his spaceship, hoping Zim would get the message. He unfortunately did not.

"...Sheer audacity to act like he hadn't heard my order for more fries..."

"Yes, Zim." Skoodge said. He heard a clank from Zim's direction, but he didn't dare turn around. That would only encourage him.

"...So tragic how I go unrecognized for my talents..."

"Yes, Zim." Skoodge heard a few loud grunts, but he shrugged them off. Zim had probably tripped over his own long-windedness.

"...I get treated like I'm as short as you, it's absurd..."

"Yes, Zim." There was a sharp electrical buzz behind him, but Skoodge was far too committed to not turning around to stop now.

"Anyway," Zim said in a more-smug-than-usual voice. "I'm off on my important special mission. Good luck being slaughtered by rat people, Skoodge. Good luck!"

Zim took off, cackling. His defective SIR Unit followed, with remarkably straight posture for a malfunctioning, poorly made-- on closer inspection, his SIR Unit didn't seem to be defective at all. Skoodge shrugged. Perhaps Zim was a better repairman than he thought. When other people did something well, Skoodge had no problem admitting it.

"Let's get going, SIR." Skoodge gestured to his own SIR Unit. It didn't move. "... SIR?"

"No," said a high voice. "I'm GIR." Skoodge spun his robot around to reveal what very clearly wasn't a Standard-Issue Intelligence Retrieval Unit. "Hiya!"

Skoodge moved his gaze over to Zim's ship, which had already taken off and was currently leaving the hangar. "Damnit, Zim!"

Zim waved from the window of his cruiser. GIR waved back at him.

Skoodge placed a hand on his head and groaned. This was going to be a long assignment.

Meanwhile, Invader Zim slouched in his seat. He'd be in it for a while, might as well get comfortable. If the Tallest hadn't "accidentally" run out of modern spaceships, he'd have a cryogenic pod built into his cruiser. As it was, he had no such pod, and was gearing up for an indeterminate stretch of lonely boredom and back pain.

He groaned. There weren't even any ships nearby to prank call. Just he, himself, and the uncaring void. Zim knew it would be hard conquering the enemy, but this was ridiculous. He was barely a day into his journey, and he was already starting to crack from the boredom.

"Hello, sir." Zim turned, surprised. His SIR Unit had moved from its spot in the ship's storage, and was currently saluting Zim from atop the cruiser's control panel. "I have some questions," it said in its metallic voice.

"What?!" Zim yelled. "You dare question Zim?!"

"Yes," said the robot.

"Well, alright then." Zim waved his hands airily. "Make it quick."

"Why was I reassigned from assisting an invader to assisting a fry cook?"

"You were reassigned to a fry cook?" Zim gasped loudly and stood up. "The nerve! What sort of filthy fry worm would have the audacity to steal _my_ robot?"

To its credit, the SIR Unit managed to keep a straight face. "Actually, sir you're the fry cook."

"Don't be preposterous, SIR." Zim scoffed audibly. " _I_ am an invader."

"Your records clearly state--"

"Don't be preposterous!" Zim yelled.

"Sir--"

"Don't. Be. Preposterous!"

The SIR Unit reluctantly dropped the subject. It was supposed to follow orders, after all, even if those orders came from a confused fry cook. It turned to go back into storage.

"SIR!" Zim called after it.

It turned on its heels and saluted.

"Stay in here for a bit. To, uh," Zim floundered. "Do some research."

"On what?"

"That hardly matters," Zim said.

"But-"

"Research! Now, SIR."

Zim's SIR Unit plugged itself into his console, and researched. Zim's antennae perked up. At least he wouldn't be completely alone for his journey.

It was day sixteen of Zim and SIR Unit 91's boring trip through the stars. Zim had completely abandoned his seat in the cruiser, instead playing his latest game of irken solitaire on the floor. In the seat instead was the SIR Unit, tapping away at Zim's console. It was still doing research of some kind, and quickly.

"SIR," Zim said lazily. It didn't respond. It was too focused.

"SIR!" Zim said more loudly.

"Sir." The SIR Unit turned from its position in the cruiser seat and saluted.

Zim paused, whatever he'd originally been planning forgotten about. His antennae twitched. "That's going to be confusing."

"What's going to be confusing?" The SIR Unit asked. "Sir."

Zim fumbled for words. "That! The- the sir thing. You cannot call yourself SIR. There shall be only one sir, and it shall be Zim!"

The SIR Unit sighed. _Other_ SIR Units were probably still in sleep mode, with their invaders peacefully in cryosleep.

"Would you like to assign this unit a new identifier?" It asked patiently.

"Yes!" Zim said. "I shall call you... Eh..."

The SIR Unit noticed Zim faltering. "This unit has prepared a list of suggestions," it said helpfully. "Would you like for me to read them?"

"No need!" Zim waved his hands dismissively. "I shall call you Dread Robot Destructio, Great Destroyer of Doom Belonging To Zim!"

"That is too many characters." Of the many things wrong with it.

"Fine. That is no issue for one such as Zim." Zim thought faster this time. "I shall call you Robot."

It was only two syllables that time. Within acceptable range. "Identifier changed to "Robot". Confirm?"

"Confirm," Zim said. He went back to playing solitaire. Robot quietly changed its name in its files. The cruiser sped on.

Months later, Zim and Robot were 92 days into their mission. Zim had given up on solitaire, due mostly to the fact that he'd destroyed half his cards in a fit of rage on day 87.

"They were looking at me funny," he'd explained. Robot had nodded politely. He'd gotten used to Zim's antics.

Zim was currently trying to make conversation. Having already exhausted most normal conversational topics, though, he'd since moved on to interrogating Robot about his upbringing. Zim had yet to realize how pointless of an endeavor this was.

"What was your first memory?" Zim asked. He sat casually on the floor of the cruiser, leaning against the wall.

"Being assigned to Invader Skoodge," Robot said. He looked back fondly to the times before he'd had Zim as an invader. Skoodge had been short, sure, but at least he wasn't a fry cook. He'd seemed like the type to listen to his SIR Unit, instead of giving it strange demands that had nothing to do with its actual purpose. "Why was I reassigned to you again?"

Zim stood up rapidly. He often did this - to make a point, to seem louder, to become taller than Robot, who sat down most of the time.

"Because! The incredibly superior Zim is deserving of a working SIR Unit. More deserving than Skoodge could ever be! Filthy Skoodge." Zim turned away from Robot to do what he did often - pretend he was crushing other, comically small irkens between his fingers. This came complete with crushing noises and quiet fake screams.

"I see." Skoodge probably would have answered questions with normal, straightforward answers, Robot lamented.

The two went back to staring into space.

"Would you like to discuss invasion plans?" Robot asked. He was desperate for new information concerning the upcoming invasion. There were only so many times one could reread the Invader's Manual, and Robot had hit that point days ago.

"Sure," Zim said. "Let's discuss invasion plans." He looked over at Robot expectantly.

"I'm eager to hear them, sir."

"You want to listen to _my_ invasion plans?"

"Yes," Robot said.

"Uh..." Zim grabbed his Invader's Manual from the control panel and quickly leafed through it. "My invasion plans are magnificent! Truly, they shall be-" Zim leafed through his manual faster. "They shall be the most invasive invasion plans the empire has ever seen!"

"And what are they?" Robot asked.

"Bah! You don't need to hear the fine details of my plans to know that they will be magnificent!" Zim leapt onto the seat of the cruiser for the added height.

Machinery quite audibly whirred in Robot's head. "You don't have a plan."

"Nonsense! Of course I have a plan! The all-powerful Zim always has a plan!"

"What's the plan?"

"It's- uh- it's a secret plan! Yes. A secret plan. Very secret."

Robot looked at Zim with something close to annoyance. "Is that so?"

"Yes," Zim said, nodding to himself. "Eh, why don't you come up with a plan of your own? Obviously it could never be as great as my secret plan, but if it is worthy enough-"

"You want _me_ to come up with _your_ plan for the invasion?"

"Well no, just a... Similar... Plan." Zim glanced around. "Go come up with my- your- invasion plan. I command you."

"Are you-"

"Go!" Zim ranted.

As Robot made his way into the cargo bay, he heard Zim mutter something to himself. As usual. Robot took a seat on a crate, clenching a three-fingered fist. He leaned back, putting his processors to work on an invasion plan. Someone on the ship had to be competent, after all.

As Robot buzzed through simulations on how he'd conquer a yet unknown alien species, he turned his thoughts to other subjects. Subjects like Zim. The moron could jeopardize his own mission if he wasn't dealt with.

On the other hand, his marked incompetence didn't seem to extend much further than stupidity. There was hope for him yet. Besides, Robot had been programmed to protect, obey, and generally assist Zim. It would take a lot of sabotage on Zim's part for Robot to go against that.

Robot stopped himself from thinking about it further. His thoughts about Zim were using too much RAM. He needed all the processing he could get to plan for the mission. He wasn't going to let Zim get in the way.

Months later, Robot found himself back in the cargo bay, mostly out of personal choice. Personal choice, and the fact that the cockpit was occupied. Zim had decided that he didn't need a cryogenic pod to hibernate. He'd boldly announced his plans to sleep for weeks, clambered onto the control panel, and done exactly that. His tiny body, fast asleep, was surrounded by empty protein bar wrappers.

Robot had not thought it prudent to point out that hibernation was only for a few types of mammals. Zim never listened to him anyway, Robot had thought at the time. It would have been pointless to try and talk him out of what was only the latest in a line of stupid ideas. Zim seemed to be full of stupid ideas lately. None were directly harmful to the mission, at least as of yet, but Robot could always hope. Well, not hope. Robot would never hope for something to endanger the mission. Although, if something was already endangering the mission, and it was only a matter of time until the mission came to harm, it wouldn't be wrong to hope that the danger revealed itself so it could be dealt with. ...Right?

A small "ping" went off in Robot's head, dissipating his thinking. There were a lot of things a ping could mean, from "John friended you on Farmville" to "the ship is about to explode". In this case, the ping had been sent directly from the cruiser's geo-scanners. They had finally reached a planet.

Robot walked into the cockpit, stepping over piles of playing cards and food. Zim had obviously been indulging himself before his self-induced coma.

"Sir!" Robot shouted. He looked up at Zim, who had his face buried in the gear shift. Thank the Tallest he'd locked the controls before dozing off. At the sound of Robot's speech synthesizer, Zim rolled over, burped and fell back asleep.

Would it count as harming Zim if Robot were to pick him up and throw him into his seat? Robot supposed it did, and reluctantly settled for gently shaking Zim awake.

"Hrngh?!" Zim muttered with unfounded outrage. He slapped Robot's hand away and looked around. "Don't touch me! Oh, it's you." Zim brushed crumbs from his chest and glanced imperiously at Robot. "What do you want?"

"The geo-scanners detected a planet nearby," Robot said.

"And you woke me from my hibernation for that?!"

"Yes."

Zim snorted, sliding off the control panel and sitting in his seat. He cleared the blanket he'd been using as a pillow off the front computer, and pressed a few buttons. The screen lit up with a diagram of the planet they were near.

"Earth," said Robot helpfully. He downloaded some basic information - the local atmosphere, the gravity, any useful minerals.

"Yes," said Zim. He stood in his chair, squinting at the planet. "We're here."


End file.
